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Hello friends, Just wanted to let you know that I'm taking a bit of a break for a few weeks. Once I have the time to devote to writing...
Richard Challen
Aug 7, 20201 min read
1,328 views
12 comments
Tommy James – “Three Times In Love”
This slice of soft-rock cheese serves as a cautionary tale for fellow aging artists: Never sell your soul for one ruthlessly bland trifle.
Richard Challen
Aug 3, 20209 min read
1,073 views
10 comments
Michael Jackson – “Off The Wall”
The transition from verse to chorus is swift, sudden, and transportive—like stepping onto the dance floor, or entering Oz.
Richard Challen
Jul 31, 20209 min read
1,038 views
4 comments
Bonnie Pointer – “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)”
Bonnie made four albums with her siblings, and then, in 1977, she went solo—just as the remaining Sisters went nuclear.
Richard Challen
Jul 27, 20209 min read
704 views
7 comments
Nicolette Larson with Michael McDonald – “Let Me Go, Love”
Nicolette Larson had talent. She had connections. She was in the right place at the right time. Sometimes, all of that isn’t quite enough.
Richard Challen
Jul 24, 20209 min read
1,707 views
9 comments
Ray, Goodman & Brown – “Special Lady”
Ray, Goodman & Brown reached the Top 5 with a song practically lifted from an earlier era—and a name lifted from an accounting firm.
Richard Challen
Jul 20, 20209 min read
813 views
11 comments
Chuck Mangione – “Give It All You Got”
“Give It All You Got” might be the only official Olympic song that makes more sense playing over the opening credits of a ’70s cop show.
Richard Challen
Jul 17, 202010 min read
1,255 views
6 comments
Pat Benatar – “Heartbreaker”
“Heartbreaker” is easily the heaviest song of Benatar’s whole career. I’m not sure another comes close.
Richard Challen
Jul 13, 202011 min read
1,748 views
21 comments
Toto – “99”
“99” is adult-rock at its most immaculate and expensive. Everyone plays with a light touch; even the syncopations sound like laughter.
Richard Challen
Jul 10, 20209 min read
2,151 views
9 comments
Rupert Holmes – “Him”
It’s all in service of an absurdist character study, presenting a portrait of a man not nearly as clever as he thinks he is.
Richard Challen
Jul 6, 20205 min read
1,025 views
6 comments
Linda Ronstadt – “How Do I Make You”
“How Do I Make You” is the sound of SoCal’s prom queen letting her hair down—or, more accurately, chopping it all off.
Richard Challen
Jun 26, 202010 min read
902 views
7 comments
Pink Floyd – “Another Brick In The Wall (Part II)”
An improbable blockbuster that distilled one man’s psychodrama down to three minutes of pseudo-disco performed by schoolchildren.
Richard Challen
Jun 22, 202016 min read
1,156 views
9 comments
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “Refugee”
“Refugee” is a fight song with the potency of a powder keg, a love song with serrated edges, an anthem in the shape of a bruise.
Richard Challen
Jun 19, 202011 min read
1,273 views
8 comments
Kool & The Gang – “Too Hot”
“Too Hot” was the first single from Kool & The Gang “Mach II” that would never have existed within the band’s earlier incarnation.
Richard Challen
Jun 15, 20205 min read
1,434 views
8 comments
Shalamar – “The Second Time Around”
This is discofied pop at its buoyant best, fizzy and funky in a way that epitomizes the whole of its parent album’s title, Big Fun.
Richard Challen
Jun 12, 20207 min read
913 views
7 comments
Barry Manilow – “When I Wanted You”
Like soap scum, Manilow’s Eighties work lingers in the grout of the Billboard Hot 100, no matter how hard you try to scrub it away.
Richard Challen
Jun 8, 20205 min read
603 views
8 comments
Andy Gibb – “Desire”
“Desire” is honestly just a great lost Bee Gees song, which means it works for three simple reasons: Barry, Robin, and Maurice.
Richard Challen
Jun 5, 20207 min read
878 views
4 comments
Electric Light Orchestra – “Last Train To London”
“Last Train” flits casually between disco and new-wave, combining the bubbly pulse of the former with the mechanical remove of the latter.
Richard Challen
Jun 1, 20206 min read
1,119 views
5 comments
John Stewart – “Lost Her In The Sun”
“Lost Her In The Sun” brought an end to a remarkable commercial blip in an equally remarkable career.
Richard Challen
May 29, 20208 min read
1,013 views
5 comments
Commodores – “Wonderland”
“Wonderland” eventually redeems itself with a great, loose, freewheeling funk jam in the closing moments, but it’s too little, too late.
Richard Challen
May 25, 20205 min read
565 views
5 comments
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